Lydgate's Metrical Inventiveness and His Debt to Chaucer

Author / Editor
Duffell, Martin (J.)

Title
Lydgate's Metrical Inventiveness and His Debt to Chaucer

Published
Parergon 18.1: 227-49, 2000.

Description
Lydgate was not an incompetent Chaucerian imitator; he used a different verse design. Parametric comparison of Chaucer's and Lydgate's verse designs demonstrates Lydgate's use of a tradition older than Chaucer's iambic pentameter. Lydgate had only English and French models; Chaucer's verse design is revolutionary, influenced by Italian forms.

Chaucer Subjects
Style and Versification.
Chaucer's Influence and Later Allusion.